


End of the Line

by explodingmrpond



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 00:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingmrpond/pseuds/explodingmrpond
Summary: In the Endgame, no one is safe. And Bucky learns that the hard way.





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenTheatrics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenTheatrics/gifts).



> I'm really sorry? I'm sort of preparing for Endgame by thinking of every major plot point that could make me cry. Dedicated to QueenTheatrics (go read The Butter fic here https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059022/chapters/16047493) and Danbam, who I wanted to make cry. Sorry again.

“He’s alive.” 

 

Bucky spoke the words into existence. If you speak certain words enough, they must be true. Steve told him that. 

 

“He’s  _ alive. _ ” 

 

Bucky looked past Natasha’s eyes to the wreckage behind her. She looked tired, even from the small glimpse of her he could see. The wrinkles that hadn’t been there when they’d first met were amplified after the past days gruelling fights. There was a smudge of blood on her cheek. There was ash on her temple. Bucky struggled against Natasha’s hands, though she wasn’t holding him all that hard. He was aware of the stones pushing their way into his back, into his body if he stayed lying here. 

 

Natasha swallowed, her eyes bright - with hope, Bucky knew. It was a hopeful look. 

 

“HE’S ALIVE!” A surge of energy brought Bucky to his feet, pushing Natasha out of the way, and she let him. Steve wasn’t far from him, a couple of hundred feet, mere seconds if he ran. So he did. 

 

Steve was on his back when he arrived, his own face smudged with dirt like Natasha’s. He wasn’t by himself, but Bucky didn’t see them. They might have well have been dust for all he cared. His vision swam as he looked at Steve and he  _ knew  _ he saw him open his eyes, just a touch, a squint, but it was too bright so he closed them again. That’s why his eyes are closed now. 

 

“Buck-” Sam tried to place a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and was shrugged off immediately. 

 

“He’s alive.” 

It had been the only thing Bucky has said in the past ten minutes. 

 

Aware dimly of some battle going on in the background, Sam vanished, as did the others surrounded him. According to them, the fight wasn’t over but to Bucky, they had already lost. 

 

Steve’s white suit was caked in blood. If Bucky hadn’t actually known it was white, he would have assumed it had always been red. And it was everywhere - his palms, his neck his - his head. The suit also didn’t even fit him anymore, it cradling Steve’s body in its waxy skin. 

 

“Steve?” 

 

Steven Grant Rogers had always been attractive, and this look used to be Bucky’s favourite. He wore one of cold determination on his face, and Bucky knew if he opened his eyes they would be gleaming blue and bright, strength in them that Bucky could only wish to have. His cheeks curved, sloped, inwards making his face look more gaunt than he had been ever as a child. Steve looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. Bucky of the past had been accustomed to seeing Steve like this, to running with this boy in the streets and defending him from bullies when they got older but Bucky - Bucky wasn’t used to this. When he’d awoken, Steve had been huge. Bigger than him ever. When Bucky had been rescued, Steve had been strong, his biceps the size of Bucky’s head. When Steve came to see him in Wakanda, and held him close, and kissed his lips so softly, he had encompassed the space around Bucky, and he had felt safe in Steve’s arms. 

 

The small, scrawny body of Steve lay on the cold ground in front of him, and Bucky wasn’t used to it. 

 

“You’re alive, Steve.” Tears threatened to drop from Bucky’s eyes as he fell to the ground beside his best friend. “Please open your eyes and tell me you’re alive.” 

 

Steve did not move. 

 

Bucky could hold him like this, now. He used to do it when they were young way way  _ way  _ back, back before all this. Before the war. When Bucky thought he was just fighting to keep people safe and return home, tired and weary, to Steve’s tiny idiotic self scolding him for going away in the first place. He would have been making them both dinner, weak cabbage soup with a small sprinkling of salt if he’d sweet-talked the grocer on the corner. They would have slept in each other’s arms for the first time in months. And Bucky - Bucky had never thought past that moment because all he wanted was to be in Steve’s arms. That was enough. Sure, they could have thought about the future then in more depth, with more consideration for how they’d sneak around, how they could grow old with no one but each other and not have the neighbours be suspicious. But Bucky had never thought that far in advance. He never thought he’d get it.

 

And Bucky had been right. 

 

“Please Steve, please.” Bucky’s face was a mess, scrunched up and red. He had wriggled his good arm around Steve’s shoulders, hoisting him up so they could be face to face. Bucky’s tears washed the mud on Steve’s face, but it did nothing for the wound. “Please, please, please.” 

Bucky was aware he was trembling and it was making Steve shake too. His head lolled to one side, close to Bucky, resting on his arm. 

 

The bullet had been a clean shot. 

 

“I had time, I could have - I should have -” Bucky stammered, tripping over his words. They felt wrong in his mouth. Steve would have told him off for that. There’s nothing he could have done, he would have said. You were busy, you had other monsters to fight. You had to protect Wanda.  _ I can do this all day.  _

 

“Why do you always have to be so  _ stubborn? _ ” He gave Steve a shake. “Huh? Why do you have to be the one to save everyone all the time? Why can’t you let someone save  _ you! _ ” 

 

Steve didn’t reply. 

 

Bucky knew this whole thing was a mess from the beginning. For starters, anyone who came from an alien planet and brandished magical stones claiming they turned back time and alternated reality and whatever was a fucking joke, but Bucky had accepted it. Or not, accepted it rather than just got on with what he had to get on with. Being turned into ash was another thing entirely but what’s done is done, and what’s reassembled and brought back with no questions asked is absolutely fine with him. But to use the stones in such a way - for one being to hold that much power… no. Bucky had a problem with that. 

 

Did it matter?

 

Did it actually  _ matter  _ right now though? 

 

It did. Because if the stones could turn Steve back to his old self, they could save him. Right? Right! Bucky chuckled to himself despite it sounding like a strangled moan. “That’s right Stevie, we just need to get the stones and you’ll be alright. We’ll get that little house with the picket fence out front, like we always talked about.” Bucky pulled a limp Steve into his arms, fully committing to sitting cross-legged in the rubble. He nestled Steve within him, like he used to when they were boys, when Steve would have an asthma attack and Bucky would stroke his back until he could breathe again. Steve looked like a boy again, but Bucky looked old. 

 

Bucky had managed to avoid looking at Steve’s face for this whole time. He’d saw it was dirty, sure, he saw it had blood on it, but not  _ Steve’s blood _ right? Steve can’t even bleed, he was sure. Steve was always fine. He could have done this all day, he always said. 

 

Bucky looked up at Steve’s small, blood-soaked face. 

 

It had went right between his eyes. A clean shot, from someone experienced and calculated. Bucky knew it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Thanos can make you do things you didn’t even want to do. He can twist time and fates and people and lives and just… take. What he thinks is his to take, to change, to… fuck it. Bucky didn’t know. 

 

Bucky lowered his face to Steve’s again, his metal hand reaching to caress his cheeks, brush away his hair where it had fallen over his eyes. His lashes were so long. They framed his blue eyes so nicely if he would just open them one more time so Bucky could see them… 

 

A loud scream sounded and lasted what felt like for hours. Bucky didn't’ know where it had came from until he realized it had came from him. He shook Steve a little harder. “Stop playing around now Stevie! This isn’t funny! People are still getting hurt, there’s still work to be done!” he gritted his teeth and hugged Steve to him. “Come on Steve!” 

 

Bucky was vaguely aware of someone approaching him, but he shrugged them off. They tried to hook him underneath his arms, and that same scream sounded again. Was that him? Bucky couldn’t be sure. 

 

“Bucky - it’s over now. Bucky… please-” 

 

Bucky bent his head low over Steve’s body. He buried it in his shoulder just wanting to smell Steve one more time, just once, so he could carry it with him for the rest of his life. Steve always smelt so delicious, like the bakery right next door to their first apartment, or just like his mother’s house when she cooked something for the two of them. Steve smelt like dirt, and dust, and that tangy smell of blood now. This wasn’t Steve. Steve always said “I could do this all day!” and kept fighting. 

 

“I love you Stevie. I love you so much it hurts. I-” Bucky sobbed out, it catching in his throat. “I can’t do this without you. I love you. I love you. I lo-” 

 

Steve  _ had _ always said he could do this all day. Bucky never said he could do this without Steve, though. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on Steve's death in a version of one of the comics (although he doesn't go pre-serum) I just added that because that made me cry.


End file.
